ARCHIVED - Wake me, when you need me. - The Traveler

A brief overview of the Traveler's Back-Story:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/12/11/jason-jones-the-destiny-interview.aspx?PostPageIndex=2
[b]You mentioned an interesting metaphor – the origin coming out of the idea of a Camelot, and the knights going out on their quest. What is your grail quest here? You’ve got these guardians, what are they doing?[/b]
[quote]Jason Jones: I was actually not going to talk about this, but I can do a little bit. Let me give you the short windup to the story. The thing is going to be in the first 60 seconds of the game. A few years from today, our present, this alien intelligence, the Traveler, comes to Earth, and we don’t know a lot, we don’t remember a lot about this time, but we know a few things that are to survive. We don’t know if the Traveler was a ship, or a god, or a moon, or whatever, but we know this thing came and we know that it settled on Mars and that it began to share its amazing technology with us, and a city grew up around it, and all this. And it started what we now call The Golden Age, and humanity spread throughout the solar system, human lifespan tripled, we terraformed planets – it was amazing. It was the best times humanity had ever seen. But the traveler had enemies – one enemy in particular. And when that enemy caught up with it at Earth, an enemy that’d been chasing it for millennia across the galaxy, a horrible battle happened. We remember almost nothing about this, this is in the distant past of the game. That’s what we call The Collapse. So that’s the solar system we inherit, is one where humanity had spread to all worlds, all the moons, all the asteroid belts, had built great things, and then had to abandon them– being driven out of them and been killed. And humanity shrunk back after this battle against the ancient enemy of the Traveler, where the Traveler itself was crippled and fell silent above Earth. Humanity was driven back to this one spot underneath the Traveler – the one safe spot in the solar system – and built the city. That’s where the guardians come from, and the guardians’ grail quest is to drive back the Darkness and wake the Traveler. And then in fact, it just got worse than that because this ancient enemy of the Traveler – the Darkness – is returning, and so there’s even more urgency. And another battle is going to be fought, and the Traveler is crippled and silent. Without it, we’ll be defenseless.[/quote]
[b]You talk about the Traveler being crippled, but it’s presumably still providing some protection Is it just enough to keep the city safe?[/b]
[quote]Jason Jones: That’s correct. Protect the city through the worst times right after the collapse – but even that – the reason that the city exists and it’s still safe is because of that very short range aura around the silent Traveler.[/quote]